I'm beginning to remember why I stopped playing Magic in the first place, keeping up is really hard when you're doing tons of other stuff with your life.

That's kind of why Commander and Modern exist!

The problem with Modern is that all my old cards predate it. Like when I last stopped playing magic back in high school, it was during the Urza's Saga block. I have a few things from packs of Urza's Legacy but that's it. Then I picked it up again when M13 came out, and bought some M13 and Avacyn's and then had to get singles for all the crazy nonsense in Innistrad and Dark Ascension that my friends told me about to shore up my decks. So as far as Modern goes, all I have is my new cards, and that usually means I lose. :(

I'm beginning to remember why I stopped playing Magic in the first place, keeping up is really hard when you're doing tons of other stuff with your life.

That's kind of why Commander and Modern exist!

The problem with Modern is that all my old cards predate it. Like when I last stopped playing magic back in high school, it was during the Urza's Saga block. I have a few things from packs of Urza's Legacy but that's it. Then I picked it up again when M13 came out, and bought some M13 and Avacyn's and then had to get singles for all the crazy nonsense in Innistrad and Dark Ascension that my friends told me about to shore up my decks. So as far as Modern goes, all I have is my new cards, and that usually means I lose.

Not sure if I posted in this or not, but the last two "competitive" decks I fielded included

Deck 1: Dark RitualHidden Horror Shallow Grave Corpse DanceMorinfenAnd some dude that started with a G

And Deck 2: Anvil of BorgardenMegrimLots o' discard.

That was Tempest when MIrage block was still legal. I have played a few times since then, but not on a competitive level. I was actually a pretty good player in Tempest. Now, My 10 year old wants to play, and we bought some starters to give it a whirl. Game seems to have not gotten stale, which is a testament to its longevity.

I'd say it's hard to say yet, but of course Hydra and Ooze are stupidly strong - got blown off the table by mono G Oooze deck (Scavenging Ooze, Predator Ooze, Strangleroot Geists and to top it off Hydra to double them counters, yay!!). Young Pyromancer worked miracles in my UWR Flash deck and it's definitely far better than Assemble the Legion plan - bouncing attacker with Azorius charm making a token to block wih is way too powerful. Played against mono R aggro that was using the new Ogres at Hellrider slots - not as good as Hellriders, but not bad either. Ratchet bomb rocks as usual in control shells. Still waiting for some "fun" decks with the demon searching thingies or the cauldron combo. Got something like new enchantress deck in mind with Ajani kittens in it and I believe anything with Staff of Nin and the enchantment that makes Illusions of your opponents creatures can be played.

Oh, and monoG ramp into Garruk -> Hoof!!! is just stupid. Presuming Titans will get reprint in Theros, we're in for really great standard season again :/

Yay MTG! I consistently draft each set a little bit on MTGO, but my work hours and limited budget mean I don't get to do too much Standard/Modern. Good to see that other people here are still in the thick of it though.

As for M14, I think Scavenging Ooze, Archangel of Thune, Garruk Caller of Beasts, Kalonian Hydra and Mutavault are your money cards, with Chandra Pyromaster pulling up the rear. I like Chandra a lot, but you have to get a lot of mileage out of a 4-drop currently and I don't think she quite does enough. Time and Young Pyromaster will tell though...

Man, I had no idea there was such a strong MTG community here as well. I've played since my 10th birthday (1998) but more-or-less quit (at least buying new cards) in 2003 when they changed the card face. I try to live up to my reputation as that guy who hates the new card faces, and I was mostly successful until this past spring when I finally cracked because RTR has been such a cool block.

Mirrodin and Kamigawa blocks added to the card style change - I didn't like their content and I liked the old cards, so I just said "screw it" and stuck to my old stuff. But RTR has been pretty cool, I really like the guilds and their mechanics, and I really really love Roman/Green history and mythology (was going to be a Classics major at one point in college), so I am looking forward to Theros with bated breath.

The biggest thing I hope to see is a return to more dual-color decks instead of tricolor. While I understand the state of mana fixing in standard is really good right now, I hope that Theros brings with it duals that are better for pairings than groupings. Hopefully it will also cut down on the number of Jund/UWR/Bant decks in the standard meta (even if Bant is my favorite of the tricolor groups). I'd love to be able to run W/G, W/R, U/G, and W/U decks in standard, and maybe even monogreen or monowhite.

Either way, until Theros comes out, I'll stick to searching out old singles from Tempest-Stronghold-Exodus (and the other old blocks that I don't have enough cards from) at my LGS.

uh, dragon con. was there a few years ago when they had a grand prix. is that still more of a lack/leather fetish convention then anything else? Can't say I expected to see girls having their boyfriends on a leash and stuff like that. when we got into the room they had the magic tournament and it was crowded with the usual 16-30y old guys with backpacks, one of my friends went 'phew, normal people.'.

Kai wrote:uh, dragon con. was there a few years ago when they had a grand prix. is that still more of a lack/leather fetish convention then anything else? Can't say I expected to see girls having their boyfriends on a leash and stuff like that. when we got into the room they had the magic tournament and it was crowded with the usual 16-30y old guys with backpacks, one of my friends went 'phew, normal people.'. :)

roflcopters

the thing is, you find, seriously, all kinds of people at DragonCon. What you saw was not representative. In fact I'm guessing that what happened was you saw some people that you didn't expect, and only remembered them and didn't really notice all the other people walking around in t-shirts and cargo shorts. :)

Been actively watching the prices now that we have a new inventory system and sales website...WTF is going on with Stormbreath Dragon and Chandra, Pyromancer? Chandra spiked up to $40 from $20 and is sold out of most stores...